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Topic: Battle Anecdotes (Read 7712 times)

Forgive the double post but I think I was nearly out of space on the first one. Day 2 is now over so I've finished all five games.

Game 4 was against Blood Angels, they had a lot of very fast things including a Storm Raven and an outflanking Baal Predator which was able to drop a nasty S6 AP3 template on my big marine squad, killing 8. I lost a good deal of marines and terminators to a big combat involving TH/SS Terminators whilst the Cultists made friends with a nasty big Dreadnought so could keep attacking if he caused wounds (so that combat phase didn't end until there were no more Cultists in reach). The Bloodthirster performed poorly this time having failed to damage the Storm Raven with his Vector strike and his Lash. He then got murdered by incoming fire before he could charge the nearby Tactical Marines.I was completely wiped out in, probably turn 5, if not 6. I also fully destroyed none of his units so the score in that respect was 1750-0.

Game 5 was the decider, to work out whether or not we would get the wooden spoons (I already have one from this place and I didn't fancy a second). We were facing the team who we'd faced before (Game 2) but this time I was against a Necron list which fortunately only had one flier. This was for the relic and I was very fortunate when my Warlord trait let me infiltrate D3 units, so my cultists found themselves within 6" of the relic at the start of Turn 1, so they were in contact with it by the end of that movement phase. My Bloodthirster rushed forwards to attack his warlord (a spidery special character in a squad of BS5 warriors). After several turns of my knocking them down only for some to rise back up every turn, he finally took me down to 2 wounds and then scored two wounds and my response was to roll snake eyes. My cultists moved backwards whilst the marines went forward to cover them, engaging a big squad of those sniper 'crons (and defeating them), then moving onto a big squad of warriors (and destroying them) and they were finally tied up with some scarabs at the end of turn 5. Each game was going to turn 6 but we sadly ran out of time at the end of turn 5, my cultists had fled from the relic and had just made it back into base contact but didn't count as holding it. My bloodletters actually did okay having tied a squad of immortals in combat and held them there until the end (going down to T3 and 1 Attack really hurt these guys).So in the end it was a narrow victory, but he failed to destroy any of my units besides the 'Thirster.

A great game and a great tournament. We finished 7th out of 8, avoiding the spoons, and on the individual's table I came 21st out of 32 which I'm happy with.

I would say my 35 point Aluress killed a Bloodthirster was pretty cool. Earlier in the game I vector striked with my Tzeentch Prince, Bloodthirster, and Fate Weaver, before I vectored I used th Maladiction where I can force a player to re roll successful savings throws. After the 3 way winged orgy it left the thirster with one wound.

Latter that game he assaulted what was left of my daemonette squad that was tied up with 30 Nurgle space marines and 10 plague bearers. The chaos gods, plus grimore of true names gave my squad a +2 invulnerable.

Needless to say I was able to weather the attacks. The Bloodthirster challenge me and I accepted with my Alluress with 3 strength 4 master crafted attacks at ap 2. He failed to wound me and I failed to wound him. However I directed all my attacks into the bearers which allowed me to win combat by 5. His daemons both failed instability which killed his thirster.

The lesson from that game was taking an icon is a good ideal. The icon saved my butt and gave me a tie breaking win a few times. I felt naked without my herald though.

It was a funny game cause he was pround that his berserkers slaughtered my poor horrors. We gathered a crowd due to his rants on "Blood for the Blood God!" After slaying my horrors. Another daemon player said that is like being pround of slaying old people on walkers, or defenseless babies. The horrors is probably the worst combat unit in the game 2nd to Tau.

Also what drew the crowd was my deamonettes holding off his entire army and holding on to the relic for dear life.

I found nurgle marines to be a pain in the butt. As an after thought I should have given my damonettes prescience. Although +2 invulnerable saves for 2 turns, go Fateweaver, and +5 fnp due to endurance really, really helped. His entire army poured into 20 daemonettes and was only able to kill around 13 leaving 7 at the end of the game vs 30 nurgle marines, 10 berserkers, 10 nurglings, and kharne. I did however throw in another squad on daemonettes and a prince.

So today was fun. It started with me making a small change to my normal guard list, by adding a psyker battle squad. To do this, I either had to remove an armoured sentinel with a lascannon or one of my beloved but not that useful ministorum priests. Eventually I removed the sentinel, but I was still considering swapping the priests for something in the future.

Anyway, I had two games today. The first was The Relic against a tyranid force with two flyrants, a trygon, some termagaunts and a scythed hierodule for some escalation fun. I won with only three models left, but the fun parts were one of the priests challenging his warlord and eviscerating it with ease, and the many and varied wounds of the hierodule, which included one from a tank shock, one from three guardsmen charging it with krak grenades and the final one from a sentinel's lascannon in overwatch. Also, it couldn't attack my commander as he was at the top of a three story ruin and the hierodule couldn't climb it and only had a template weapon.

The second game was blood angels. The fun thing here was Mephiston charging my veteran squad, only to be challenged by a priest. The priest then passed eleven consecutive 4+ invulnerable saves over two rounds of combat, and landed a wound on the lord of death. Eventually my opponent decided Mephiston needed help and sent some bikers to take my moral support away. The priest only passed four of the six wounds from that third round of combat. I lost, but my priests clearly wanted to gain some more job security.

I've been trying out the new Dark Eldar and well... it's a complicated book.Dies horribly versus anything that ignores cover, but has quite nice tricks up it's sleeve.DE Relic that drops Ld plus Farseers are NASTY.

Played also some Space Wolves versus... Orks.It did not go as well as had hoped, despite my running a Thunderwolf-Star.

Haven't run Tau for a while, still trying to find a list that can deal with the sudden lack of Eldar help.Maybe Farsight Enclaves?

So, the other day I finally got around to playing some games with my new copy of the rulebook. The first game was fairly dull, 1000pts, my guard versus space marines. Ended with a draw. The second game was a bit more lively, though...

I decided to try something new, and took a level 2 Primaris Psyker and have him use santic powers. He got Hammerhand, and Vortex of Doom. My opponent meanwhile had the most powerful yet fluffy blood angels lists I've seen. Five drop pods with various passengers, and a landspeeder. Having three drop pods land on my platoon and heavy flamer them was not pleasant, so I decided to get some revenge. The psyker stepped up, and cast the Vortex.

So, long story short, by the end of the game, my psyker had destroyed an armoured sentinel and a chimera and injured Straken before being taken down by bolter fire. He Perils of the Warped twice, neither harming him while one gave him a warp surge, which allowed him to survive half the blood angels firing at him. And he killed exactly none of my opponents models.

I am firmly of the opinion he was possessed, and on his death a greater daemon should have been summoned. I look forward to using him again one day.

One of my favourite anecdotes to this day is from 4th edition. I was playing in a 1500pt game, my Tyranids against my friend's Blood Angels. i've always favoured combat over shooting so my list was full of hormagaunts and genestealers, warriors, a Tyrant and a Carnifex.

Turn 2 my Hormagaunts reached his lines. By turn 4 the collective force of both our armies was engaged in a single mass combat in the centre of his lines. I lost the game in the end, but it was one of the best games I've played in and the looks of utter confusion from other players as we tried to work out which models could allocate attacks where.

I had a 6th ed three-player game today, 2x 1000pt lists versus a 2000pt list.

Myself wth Tau, my ally with Sisters of Battle and we took on a pure Tzeentch daemon list.

I had an ethereal, 3x 8-man fire warrior teams, a pathfinder team, 3 rifle broadsides, an ionhead and a railhead. The sisters had a canoness with squad in an immolator, 3x squads of 10 sisters, a squad of seraphim and an Exorcist.

The Tzeentchians took Fateweaver, 4x mastery 3 heralds on chariots, 2x squads of 20 horrors, a winged daemon prince and a soul grinder (the latter being the only unit that didn't develop at least 3 warp charge points a turn).

Turn one, the daemon prince took out half a fire warrior squad with flickering fire of tzeentch (everything had this spell), Fateweaver annihilated my pathfinders, both of these were of course flying at this point. We were able to kill the daemon prince with overwhelming firepower (he was within rapid fire range of all of my fire warriors).

Turn two, the big horror squads deep struck in, so did the soul grinder. Three of the herald shad begun on the board with the big daemons, the fourth nearly came in here but scattered too far and went back into ongoing reserves. I suffer a lot of pain as my fire teams are whittled down (although none completely destroyed at this stage).We strike back, my railhead's submunition taking one horror squad down to half whilst the sisters deal with a couple of the heralds.

Eventually I remember the rule about being able to knock FMCs out of the sky and on turn 3 we remove Fateweaver from the game. Sadly at this point the horrors manage to kill my ethereal but with seraphims in combat with horrors and my gunline removing the last couple of heralds we eventually manage to wipe the daemons off the table right at the end of turn 4.

I had a bit of a look round online beforehand to see about 3-player all-v-all but it looks difficult to sort out, especially on a rectangular 6' by 4' table. One suggestion was for each player to hold their own objective and try to capture the one to their left so each player is attacking one opponent and defending from another.

His opening salvo destroyed my defiler, I moved everything forwards to try and engage him in close combat asap. My CSMs were severely damaged by a turn of TSon shooting but then a Bloodletter squad arrived and tied those TSons in combat for a while. One of my Bloodthirsters cracked open the Land Raider but was brought down by sustained lascannon fire whilst the other accepted a challenge from a TSon Aspiring sorcerer and after rolling terribly on his attacks he learned just how nasty force weapons can be and was insta-killed. My Terminators struck in and engaged his, mine dealing most of the damage but in the duel between his Sorcerer and my Lord I once more learned how nasty Force Weapons can be. So I lost this one.

Game two was much more one-sided. He'd come up with a 1000pt Eldar list but having seen what I was proxying, he altered it a bit to become (Illic Nightspear, 2x 10 Alaitoc Paathfinders (the upgraded Rangers that Illic can get), Wraithlord w. no additional weapons, Wraithknight w. no additional weapons).I brought Imperial Guard with some help (Company Command Squad w. 1x bolter, camo cloaks and a Master of Ordnance, 2x Veterans w. camo cloaks, 1x bolter, 1x sniper rifle, 1x autocannon, Knight Paladin, Knight Errant).

His Alaitoc Pathfinders started in reserve and I took the first turn. The clash of the titans began as my big things closed with his big things, I also found that in the ruin-heavy map we'd laid out, the ignore cover order truly comes into its own. Illic manages to target my commander but a Look Out Sir! saves his life and an ignores cover autocannon saw the end of old Nightspear. The Wraithknight managed to inflict a couple of hit on my Paladin before engaging in melee, my Paladin went down to 1HP before annihilating the xenos filth. The Errant had no such trouble dealing with the Wraithlord at range. His Pathfinder teams appeared on opposite board edges and began exchanging fire with my veteran teams, all sides heavily entrenched at this point. One of his snipers took out a veteran and my men hit back stronger, throughout the game the Master of Ordnance did very little but with his big things dead, my Knights turned on the puny eldar and after a bit more fire they all fled the board. At the end of the game I had lost one veteran from my command squad and one veteran from elsewhere.

So the two things we can take away from all this; Force Weapons are really powerful, Imperial Knights are really powerful.